


Mending Fences

by quills_at_dawn



Series: Witcher Shorts [7]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Chaperon, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Canon, Retirement, Toussaint (The Witcher)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 00:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21045209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quills_at_dawn/pseuds/quills_at_dawn
Summary: “Bring anything you can’t live without. We’ll be away for two months at least.”“Six weeks, maximum,” Roche growled, “Two to get there, one week with Geralt, two to get back, and one for the unforeseen.”Iorveth didn’t answer, his attention on the blue badge with the three fleur-de-lis that lay on the near-empty desk.“Don’t forget to bring this.”Roche looked up.“What for? I don’t need it anymore. You can have it. Complete your collection.”Iorveth shook his head, brought it over and put it on top of the things that were in Roche’s pack.“You’ll always be the one that got away.”Post-Blood and Wine, Iorveth and Roche are sent on a delivery quest to Toussaint.





	Mending Fences

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zemyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zemyr/gifts).

> For the Trope Bingo square: free square

**MENDING FENCES**

“I don’t see why _ we _ have to do this,” Roche grumbled, throwing a couple of rolled up undershirts into his travel pack, “All the way to bloody Toussaint to bring Geralt flowers!” 

“And nekker hearts,” Iorveth added mildly, “And a few other things you can’t just buy from a market stall. Besides, we’re retired. And it will be nice to see Geralt again.” 

“Well, yes,” Roche admitted grudgingly, thinking of his old friend, “Still...” 

Iorveth wandered over to the desk by the window. 

“Spare me the whining, Roche. I’m not happy about this either, you know.” 

It struck him afresh how much Vizima looked like Novigrad these days. Cleaner, wealthier, cosmopolitan. The streets bustled with Northerners, Nilfgaardians, elves and dwarves, even Ofieri. 

He and Roche had nothing to show for the decades they’d spent fighting, but their efforts to mend the divisions between their peoples had already borne fruit. 

“Bring anything you can’t live without. We’ll be away for two months at least.” 

“Six weeks, maximum,” Roche growled, “Two to get there, one week with Geralt, two to get back, and one for the unforeseen.” 

Iorveth didn’t answer, his attention on the blue badge with the three fleur-de-lis that lay on the near-empty desk. 

“Don’t forget to bring this.” 

Roche looked up. 

“What for? I don’t need it anymore. You can have it. Complete your collection.” 

Iorveth shook his head, brought it over and put it on top of the things that were in Roche’s pack. 

“You’ll always be the one that got away.” 

* * *

It was strange wearing the old clothes again. The long chainmail shirt, the stiff leather gambeson beneath it. They smelled musty from having been left in a chest for years, almost abandoned, refusing to be forgotten. 

Iorveth too had reverted back to his old gear for the trip, right down to the rusting mail. Only the three badges — of Kaedwen, Redania and Aedirn — had been removed from his leather strap. Roche wasn’t wearing his badge either, but he wore the medallion on its heavy chain that Foltest himself had given him, all those years ago. He hadn’t worn it since the peace and nearly hadn’t today but then had put it on in a fit of confused defiance. 

“A room for the night?” the innkeeper in Moën offered, pouring out an ale as he looked them over. 

“Two rooms,” Roche growled, throwing a handful of coins onto the bar. He’d already punched one innkeeper in the nose for saying that his establishment did not rent rooms by the hour. 

As soon as he stepped into his room, he slammed the door in this innkeeper’s face, threw himself onto the bed and kicked off his boots, sighing. 

He liked his own space but in other times he might have shared a room with one of his men — or with Ves, since he was the only person he trusted to do so — partly through a desire to be sparing with his King’s coin and partly because the Blue Stripes took a certain pride in being a bit rough despite their elite status. 

He was irked by the constant stream of significant looks he and Iorveth got over dinner and took it out on the food, ordering more ale and roast meat than anyone else could afford. 

“Hungry?” Iorveth drawled, eyebrow raised. 

“That’ll give them something to stare at.” 

There was no need for parsimony now. There was no need for either of them to do anything at all these days. They’d been given a ridiculous allowance for this fool’s errand and they didn’t even need that because they both drew generous veteran’s pensions for their brief stint as commanders under the Nilfgaardian banner during the third war — and the second, in Iorveth’s case. Roche wasn’t frugal, exactly, but his needs had always been simple and they were more than met. What he did to help his country and countrymen now he did as unspoken penance for the endless well of sins in his past. He suspected Iorveth was the same. 

They travelled light and slept in the open in-between villages. Just like the old days only now it was the two of them on the same side, and though Roche wouldn’t admit it, his weary joints protested against the cold. 

“Is this the sort of rubbish Geralt used to do as a witcher?!” Roche huffed at Iorveth as they chased after goats. 

They’d heard from the baker in the previous village that the blacksmith in the next village might have griffin beak shavings — another item on the list and one which Geralt himself noted could sometimes be found for sale. 

Only the three goats the blacksmith kept for milk and other things had escaped through a break in the fence and were wreaking havoc on the cabbages in the garden of his neighbour, the rag-and-bone man, who was threatening to turn the beasts into the tools of his trade, and the only price the blacksmith would accept for the griffon beak shavings was the recapture of the offending animals and the mending of the fence. 

“We should have gone after the beast itself,” Roche grumbled as they yanked the fence posts back into position and set about securing them. 

“Gone after _ a griffin _?” Iorveth asked, looking at him like he was madder than usual. 

“Why not? We could have taken one, the two of us,” Roche grunted, giving the rope a vicious tug, “This whole thing is undignified. We haven’t even seen any bandits!” 

“We saw a couple up the road but you yelled at them to keep left and scared them off,” Iorveth pointed out. 

Vernon Roche’s infamous scowl and his barking shouts were still the terror of all four former kingdoms. 

“A room for the night?” the innkeeper in Cleves offered, drying a pewter stein as he looked them over. 

“_ Two _ rooms,” Roche growled, throwing a handful of coins onto the bar. 

“We only have the one room left,” the innkeeper said, sliding half the coins back across the bar, “Everybody’s in town for the fishing competition.” 

“Oh, for the love of Melitele’s ti—!” 

“That’s fine. We’ll take it,” Iorveth intervened and dragged Roche away. 

“The fishermen are bound to scare away the drowners,” he later remarked over dinner, “No drowners in the Yaruga and the bloody Nilfgaardians have sanitised every ploughing pond and lake this side of the Pontar,” Roche muttered in disgust, eyeing the unfathomable soup they’d been served. 

“Want to take a detour and follow up the river or should we take our chances somewhere else further along the road?” 

“We could detour out to the Chotla, see if it still has drowners, before going to Mayena.” 

Iorveth gave him a look but said nothing then finally nodded. 

“Aren’t you going to put something on?!” Roche demanded in alarm as Iorveth came over to the bed that night, entirely naked. 

“You’re dressed enough for the both of us,” Iorveth yawned, sliding between the sheets and shoving Roche over. 

“Your feet are cold.” 

“S’normal,” Iorveth mumbled into his shoulder. 

Iorveth’s feet warmed up against his calves and Roche’s body loosened again as he lay awake, listening to the elf’s breathing even and slow into sleep. 

Hours later, Roche woke with the the elf twined all over him and was about to shake him, a hot protest on his lips, when he stopped. He’d learnt a lot about elves since the peace and realised he’d agreed to this when he’d agreed to share the bed with Iorveth. 

His former life had been made up of hardships but he’d never had to share a bed with anyone. Any intimacies, even the unpaid ones, had been rushed things. A body bent over a table or pressed against a wall in a dark corner or alleyway. Brisk, businesslike, anonymous. 

Faceless. 

But Iorveth... By now it felt like he’d known the shape of him forever. 

Sure, he’d touched him in combat. He’d grabbed him by the wrist once and felt the swell of bone fit into the center of his palm, and another time he’d managed to pin him down, trapping the strong, lean body between his thighs. He had known, even before seeing it tonight, that under the layers of padded clothing Iorveth was slimmer than he seemed. 

But it went beyond that. 

He knew the curve of his good cheek, the wreck of his injured one. He could recognise the outline of him before even realising he was looking at a living thing — a skill that had saved his life more than once. 

He had not exactly gotten away, as Iorveth so generously put it, Roche recognised. He had, on several occasions, been allowed to live. He’d been _ spared _ by Iorveth, just as he himself had spared the Scoia’tael commander a couple of times. 

He’d always had reasons for doing so — sound ones, he was sure, even though he could no longer remember them — but every time he’d wondered if he would live to regret it. He’d survived and looking at Iorveth’s sleeping form he knew he didn’t regret having taken his chances. As it turned out, Iorveth and his elves were not what was wrong with the world. 

“Duck!” 

Roche instinctively obeyed and felt the thrum in the air as the arrow Iorveth loosed shot through the air above him to drive itself between the eyes of the drowner that had crept up behind him. 

“Well,” he said, straightening, “That’s the last of them.” 

“A room for the night?” the only innkeeper in Old Bottoms offered, moving a stack of clean napkins out of harm’s way as he looked them over. 

“Whatever,” Roche growled, slamming a handful of coins onto the bar. 

Still covered in pond scum, he and Iorveth trudged up the stairs to their assigned room, where Iorveth beelined for the washbasin by the fire, shedding clothes as he went. 

“Do you mind?” 

“No,” Iorveth said, glancing over his shoulder, “How can you stand being so dirty?” 

Roche glared resentfully as the pointy-eared bastard wiped himself clean, feeling like an unwashed savage. 

“You don’t have to watch if it offends your delicate sensibilities,” Iorveth pointed out without looking over. 

“I’m not!” Roche defended, looking away. 

“Well, while you’re not looking, can you do my back? And I’ll do yours if you decide to clean up.” 

“Of course I’m going to clean up!” Roche barked then stomping over in a huff, “What kind of degenerate willingly festoons themselves in drowner guts?” 

“Grave hag?” Iorveth suggested, handing him the washcloth. 

“At least Geralt didn’t ask for one of those,” Roche grumbled, snatching the washcloth and getting to work vengefully. 

He could see Iorveth’s ribs through his flesh and could have counted every last one of his vertebrae, from the nape of his neck, down the length of his spine, to where they disappeared between two dimples. 

Even in peacetime the elf hadn’t managed to put on weight. He was still famine, death and war in one being. 

“Alright, your turn,” Iorveth announced. 

He went to warm himself by the fire while Roche stripped slowly. 

“You’re hurt,” Iorveth noted, eyes narrowing. 

“Am I?” Roche said dismissively, knowing perfectly well that he was. 

The blow had glanced off his ribs but no doubt there was a nice bruise forming, and possibly a cut, judging by the sting. 

He hadn’t parried quickly enough. He was out of practice and his body had been stiff with cold. 

In other times, Iorveth would have make a sly remark about him getting old or having the reflexes of a particularly slow oak. Now he said nothing as he came over to study the cut. 

“Hold your arm up.” 

Cool fingertips explored around it lightly and Roche was just about to tell Iorveth not to worry about it when he heard a slosh, smelled a whiff of whisky then felt the wound burn. 

“I was going to drink that!” 

“Plenty more when it came from.” 

They’d given their filthy clothes to wash so they had a late start the next day and it was already mid-afternoon when they passed the old battlefields of Brenna. 

“Northern valour,” Roche remarked to rile Iorveth up. 

“Nilfgaardian incompetence,” Iorveth dismissed distractedly, “Believe me, I was there.” 

Roche glanced at the elf in surprise and Iorveth automatically turned to him, the lines of his face unchanged and yet suddenly hollow and wan. 

Roche felt a spark of frost rip down his spine as he gazed into the green eye that looked back without seeing him. 

Iorveth’s eye had always seemed to him like a fountain of youth. Year after year he’d clashed with the Scoia’tael, feeling his body growing slower and heavier, while Iorveth returned armed always with that invincible agelessness and determination that never dimmed. 

And yet now it seemed to him that a handful of years of peace had aged him more than countless ones of warfare had. 

“A room for the night?” the innkeeper’s wife in Brenna offered, beaming at them as she put the finishing touches on a wedding cake. 

“Fine,” Roche mumbled, throwing a few coins onto the counter. He wasn’t in the mood to punch a woman. 

He watched Iorveth pick at his dinner and listened to him make half-hearted retorts to his jibes. 

Deep in the night, Iorveth began to struggle beside him in his sleep, clearly in the clutches of a nightmare. 

Roche moved to wake him then stopped, wondering if his face was the very stuff of Iorveth’s nightmares. 

“Iorveth?” he murmured, as reassuring as he could manage. 

He watched the familiar eye open, pale as river ice in the moonlight. 

“You were having a nightmare.” 

Iorveth stared up at him, unblinking. 

“I don’t remember it. I was probably just cold.” 

Roche swallowed the lie and pulled Iorveth closer, tucking the blanket more securely around him. 

“Better?” 

“Mmm,” Iorveth hummed contentedly. 

His breathing slowed and deepened but he did not fall asleep again and Roche wondered what he’d dreamt of. 

They never spoke of the past. On the day they’d signed the peace with Nilfgaard, Emhyr himself had given them a lecture — a _ reminder _, as he’d termed it — regarding the empire’s laws on racial equality and the penalties for breaking them. 

Their past selves struggled to coexist with their present ones. Neither of them had official leadership roles anymore, but both were still important figures in their respective communities and they’d worked hard, sometimes together, to undo the prejudices of peoples who had been drip-fed fear and loathing for decades and centuries. 

They were both singular now that the Scoia’tael and Blue Stripes had been disbanded. Both stripped of their packs to reveal the lone wolves they really were. 

Ves wasn’t changed, exactly, but she was different. She’d been assigned a comfortable sinecure and in her free time threw all her energy, grit and determination into the creation of a shelter for single mothers and their children, open to all races. 

It was the sort of thing Roche could have done — _ should _ have done — but he’d never been able to shake the feeling, deep in his bones, that he had no right too. He’d gone too far to ever come back. He couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t caused the deaths of countless mothers and children, sometimes by his own hand, and any moral right he might have had by virtue — if that was the word — of his own history had been exhausted. 

The next day, while Roche set up their camp by a copse and got the fire going, Iorveth disappeared for a while then returned with a brace of partridges and a bracket fungus he’d found on a fallen birch. While they roasted the birds, the elf cut strips from the mushroom that he applied to Roche’s wound when he redid the bandage. 

In other times, Roche would have made a remark to the effect that there were easier ways to poison him, but now he said nothing and waited obediently while Iorveth tended him. 

That particular pestilence, that hatred between their races, was gone. 

It must have disappeared gradually, Roche reasoned within himself the next day as he and Iorveth rode on in companionable silence. He couldn’t remember it fading and yet it was so absent it felt as if it must have died a sudden death. 

They spent that night out in the open and though the spring nights were getting warmer and there was plenty of space for them to spread out, Roche let Iorveth curl up against him as had become their custom, his liripipe hood rolled up into a pillow for them. 

The elf’s absences became more frequent and his apathy increased the further south they went and Roche remembered that Iorveth ought to have refused to go to Toussaint on principle. 

Now that the four kingdoms were united under Nilfgaard and true independence for Temeria wasn’t even the stuff of dreams anymore, now that his king’s name was thought of more as that of a public holiday than of a person who had once been, Roche himself had little left that felt worth expending real principles or sentiment on. 

But Iorveth did. 

When they reached Lower Sodden, however, Roche was surprised to find that he could still feel something. They’d already gone further south than he’d ever been, but now they were reaching the ends of the North he’d known, the fringes of the land where his king’s banners had been flown. 

“A room for the night?” the innkeeper in Armeria offered, winking at them as he rolled a fresh keg into place under the counter. 

Roche shrugged in acquiescence and threw money onto the counter. 

“We could just go home, Geralt can get his own ghoul gizzards,” he later suggested as they both lay in bed staring up at the peeling paint on the ceiling, “It can’t be that urgent if it can wait the three weeks it’s already taken us to get this far. We should have just paid one of his witcher friends to bring him what he wants. We still could.” 

“You know we can’t. The duchess or the emperor are behind the request. We’d lose our pensions.” 

“And you’d care?” Roche demanded, propping himself up on one elbow to look at Iorveth searchingly, “We don’t need it. I know you give all of yours to your elves anyway.” 

Iorveth scowled and averted his gaze. 

“And I want to continue to. We need every oren we can get.” 

“Florens, not orens, Iorveth,” Roche reminded him harshly, “Or have you forgotten we sold ourselves and our principles to Nilfgaard?” 

Iorveth’s palms hit his chest like hammer blows as he shoved him away and the elf sprang out of bed and stalked off. 

Roche tumbled out after him, instantly repentant. 

“I’m sorry, Iorveth, I didn’t mean it. Or maybe I did,” he rambled, itching but not daring to grab the shoulders that had been turned to him, “But I meant it for myself, not you. It’s different for you. I just…” he paused, sighing and dragging his hands over his eyes, “I just want to go home. This is no place for us.” 

He paused and waited. Iorveth’s back was still to him but his anger had broken, Roche could feel it. 

He was tired of the thoughts that kept him awake at night. He’d kept the past — all its disappointments and broken promises, all its pointless sacrifices and grief — at bay for so long. But out here they were like a tide that had ebbed for years and was now crashing over him and Roche was terrified of being washed away and never finding foot again. 

“Come back to bed? You’re getting cold.” 

He felt Iorveth waver and pressed his advantage, curving a hand over Iorveth’s shoulder, rubbing his thumb up to the nape of his neck. 

“We’ll go see Geralt, give him the things he asked for, and then when we’re ready we’ll head back.” 

Iorveth turned and held him tight and strong as an iron band around his chest, and Roche held him close, past the pain of his still healing wound. 

“Sorry, I forgot,” Iorveth mumbled against his neck. 

“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt.” 

“A room for the night,” Roche said as amiably as he could to the innkeeper in Belhaven 

“Our wedding suite is free. Biggest one we have.” 

“Why not,” Roche said with a suave smile that left the innkeeper spooked. 

Terrorising the local populace in this harmless way was a small pleasure he could indulge in and he did so at every opportunity. 

He’d felt mildly cheated by how uneventful their crossing of the Yaruga had been. Despite all its symbolic, historical and strategic importance, in the end, it was just another river. 

They were still only on the outskirts of Toussaint but even so, Iorveth still had the look of one who had stepped into the underworld and been pleasantly surprised. People stared at his ears and his one eye and whispered behind his back, but in wonder rather than hostility. 

As they left Myrkwood behind, they came upon a knot of knights errant and helped them repel the clutch of bandits that had ambushed them. Their new acquaintances were delighted to discover they were friends to Sir Geralt of Rivia, whom they venerated like a patron saint and they promptly insisted on escorting them the rest of the way through the duchy to Corvo Bianco — though it wasn’t clear to Roche who was availing themselves of whose protection. 

As the days went on, he was increasingly relieved at having guides and even more so at seeing Iorveth’s mood improve, but privately appalled at their new companions, by their curleycued turns of phrases and by their elaborate, shiny — engraved _ and _ gilded! — armour ornamented with peacock feathers and worse. 

But as they rode further into Toussaint, Roche realised that these storybook knights had only shown up as precursors to the fairytale land they belonged to. 

Once the pass opened up into the sun-filled valley through which the Sansretour glittered like a ribbon of magic, the vertical mountainsides gave way to rolling foothills, everything green, lush and tidy. The roads improved, as did the quality of the houses with their fruit trees carefully trained up their walls and their neat little gardens. The woods became less foreboding and receded to make way for endless lines of precisely-clipped vines. 

“How do they do that?” Iorveth wondered out loud. 

“Don’t you know how?” Roche asked in genuine curiosity, forgetting they were in company, “Seems like the sort of thing elves would know how to do.” 

“I’m not elf enough,” Iorveth quipped. 

That wasn’t it, Roche decided as he rolled the thought around in his mind, tuning out the toybox knight who began to explain the intricacies of viticulture. If anything, Iorveth was too elf. A real _ aen seidhe _, as Ciaran had put it, one of the last. The other elves were adapting, just as Ves and the rest of Temeria seemed to be adapting. They all wanted to put the horrors of the war behind them and move on, to live comfortably and prosperously and make the best of the new world that had emerged. 

Only he and Iorveth seemed unable to change and adjust. 

Their guides knew all the best inns and since Iorveth and Roche’s reputation had preceded them from the Belhaven inn they were given the best room to share everywhere they went. There seemed no point trying to explain and besides, by now they’d become so accustomed to sharing that they’d fallen into the habit of repacking their things into their saddlebags as rationally as possible, regardless of who they belonged to, and it seemed more awkward not to share than to go on doing so. 

The food, even that found in the most modest roadside eatery, was the best Roche had ever eaten and required no adjustment at all beyond the fresh astonishment at always finding it delicious. 

They had stopped for a lunch of bread and cheese and wine when one of the knights pointed at a bend in the river, screened by the tallest reeds Roche had ever seen. 

“There is a fine prospect of Beauclair palace and its environs from yonder bank, if messires would care to view it.” 

So they strolled out to the indicated spot, Iorveth a little more anxiously than Roche, and when the tall, elegant, gleaming white palace came into view, Iorveth unconsciously backed straight into Roche and grabbed his arm. 

“Roche!” 

Roche wrapped an arm around the elf to help still his trembling but both their gazes were still trained on the dream-like palace. 

He recognised in it the ogives and the rose window, the verticalities of columns and turrets that it had in common with Vizima palace, but to say they were similar would have been likening the overflow from an eavestrough to a waterfall. 

The banners atop the palace’s tallest towers were visible for days and whenever they stopped, Iorveth instinctively turned to them like a homing pigeon about to take flight. 

“Geralt first and then the capital,” Roche half-cajoled, half-promised one night as they lay with their heads on the same pillow, the tips of their noses a thumb’s breadth apart. 

He stroked Iorveth’s hair with his thumb until Iorveth nodded and pressed himself against him, tucking himself under his chin. 

The elf had spent hours staring at the palace as they’d made their way to and through the capital. 

He was enraptured. 

Roche could conceive how it would be akin to seeing a dream come true but recognised that it was more than that. Iorveth was like a pilgrim who had walked the sacred road until his feet were torn and bloodied, until he’d nearly lost sight of why and whether the sacrifice had any meaning, only to find, to see with his own eyes, that the afterlife did exist. 

They finally crested the wooded hill that put the palace out of sight and turned their thoughts to Geralt and his vineyard. 

Toussaint was not unlike what the best parts of the North had once been, before the wars, when Velen had still been a flowering orchard and the great tree in Mulbrydale had been king of the forest rather than the hangman’s friend. 

Even this early in the summer it seemed like every shrub was in flower, every tree in fruit, bursts of colour on the bright, untrodden green of the grass. 

Since word had spread that they were friends of Sir Geralt of Rivia’s they were never attacked by bandits, but there were still giant centipedes, the Toussaintois versions of nekkers and other monsters. Nothing the small company they now were couldn’t handle but Roche’s inner commander bristled until he caved and began to order them into greater efficiency. 

“Corvo Bianco,” one of the knights grinned, nodding, as the light began to fade. 

An ostentation of peacocks was on hand to greet them at the gates of the sprawling, sunset-drenched estate, and Roche’s heart swelled at the thought that his old friend had the comfortable retirement he so richly deserved. 

“Roche…” 

Roche turned to Iorveth and knew he too felt the same joy, so acute it was painful. 

Geralt himself was in the garden, brushing his hand over some flowers and he looked up in response to their hail and came over as they dismounted. 

More warmth welled up in Roche’s chest as he saw the minute changes in his friend’s impassive expression. 

“Roche, Iorveth, how was the journey?” Geralt asked as if seeing them here was nothing at all. 

Then he hugged them both, enveloping them in a cloud of lavender scent before they all traipsed inside. 

They sat around the kitchen table drinking Geralt’s wine and eating Marlene’s food — both of which were plentiful — while they and the knights recounted to Geralt their adventures from the last few days’ journeying. 

Then the knights left and Roche quietly updated Geralt on common acquaintances and the situation in the North while Iorveth nodded off in an armchair by the fire. 

“It’s been hard on him. Coming here to Toussaint,” Roche murmured, going over to tuck a throw blanket around the sleeping form. 

“BB’s having a guest room made up for you.” 

Marlene brought them tisanes and they chatted idly on into the night about Corvo Bianco and Toussaint more generally. 

Then BB looked in and cleared his throat, and Roche stood, went to gather Iorveth up and carried him off to their room. 

“Sleep well?” Geralt asked as Roche appeared early the next morning. 

“Like a log, thanks.” 

“Iorveth?” 

“Still in the tub. He hasn’t had a real bath in a while so I don’t think we’ll be able to pry him out any time soon.” 

Roche accepted a mug of coffee and held out a basket of jars, brown paper parcels, tin boxes, and bottles. 

“The things you asked for.” 

“Thanks. Just put them there and I’ll go through them later.” 

“Not urgent then?” Roche asked casually after he’d put the basket down and taken a long, leisurely sip of coffee, reverting to the softest of his interrogation techniques. 

Alerted to his mistake, Geralt went over to the basket, picked up the topmost jar and studied it with patent interest. 

“Those aren’t real griffin beak shavings, are they?” Roche pressed nonchalantly, “We got them off a blacksmith who was a failed cheese-maker.” 

Geralt sighed and shook the jar absently. 

“Usually they’re horse hoof shavings. Marlene uses them for the laundry,” he admitted, peering at the loose bits, “These look like goat.” 

“Why didn’t you just ask for that then?!” 

Geralt shrugged. 

“Used to thinking of it as griffin’s beak. Marlene says the real thing works best. Anyway, going out for my morning round, want to come? We’ll have breakfast with Iorveth when we get back.” 

Roche looked out the nearest window at Corvo Bianco, barely woken by morning light. Now they were here, the why barely seemed to matter anymore. 

“Sure.” 

“Keep still!” Roche admonished as he tried to adjust Iorveth’s new bandana through the elf’s constant fidgeting. 

“There,” he said, stepping back to admire his handiwork, “Fit for an empress, never mind a lowly duchess.” 

Iorveth smiled but despite the pronouncement he stared at himself in the mirror, his gaze roving over his reflection. 

After they’d been at Corvo Bianco a week, a liveried courier arrived with a letter bearing a red wax seal with a ducal crown. 

“Anna Henrietta has granted you both an audience,” Geralt had announced. 

No reply was required, one did not refuse the monarch. 

And so after another week of fresh air and sunshine, the day had come and they all had new clothes to befit the occasion. 

Their days had largely followed the pattern of that first one. Iorveth, always lean, had lost weight on the trip down and Marlene had made it her mission to fatten him up with an endless supply of grilled chickens, quails, partridges, sun-dried tomatoes, strawberries with fresh cream, and mature cheeses with bread still warm from the stone oven. 

By now he’d developed deeper colour on his cheeks and filled out, and looked very handsome in his new doublet. 

But Iorveth wasn’t worried about his appearance, Roche knew, or about meeting yet another human ruler who might one day order his death. 

No. It was the palace itself, and the thought of stepping into halls and touching the very marble that had been fashioned by elven hands centuries ago, so little defiled by human hands that they retained their original shape — unlike Vizima and so many other places in the North. 

The Duchess was young and beautiful and wore her cloth-of-gold dress like a jewel-encrusted armour. Imperious, but generally not what Roche had expected a Nilfgaardian ruler to be like. 

She was gracious, with the same natural, easy manner that Foltest had had, and she was delighted to meet friends of Geralt’s. Iorveth’s presence, especially, seemed to matter a great deal to her. 

“We are holding a ball in a fortnight, you must both come. Sir Vernon, you will help me convince Sir Iorveth.” 

And when Roche promised her he would but protested that he was not a knight, the Duchess gave him an arch look. 

“Is that the only condition on which you would accept the title? It can be arranged.” 

And Roche found himself even more pressingly explaining that that was not necessary. 

“You don’t mind staying for the ball?” Iorveth later asked him as they lay in bed together. 

In the North they’d been enemies all their lives, but here in this strange land they were closer than brothers and even the pillow talk seemed normal. 

“No.” 

Even if he had, Roche knew one didn’t refuse a monarch, even a beloved one. 

“Did you like the palace, Iorveth? Is that the sort of place you’d have wanted to live in?” 

Silence. 

“I used to think so. In a future that would never come. It’s what I want for the others. But I don’t belong there, I belong in the woods.” 

And so after they’d spent a couple of days drinking some of the excellent wine the duchess had gifted them, Iorveth dusted off his bow and quiver of arrows and took to disappearing daily into the neighbouring woods, returning in the late afternoon with the day’s catch — sometimes hares, sometimes game birds of some sort, sometimes a deer that Roche and Geralt had to help him with. 

Roche had discovered that there were plenty of guest rooms at Corvo Bianco — certainly enough for him and Iorveth to have had one each — but they would be leaving soon after the ball and there didn’t seem to be much point in having another one made up. 

Meanwhile, Roche discovered his many years of making do in the field, his aptitude for knots, his ease wielding a hammer and sundry other tools, all came in useful around the estate and he took to touring it with Geralt every morning, taking notes of changes and anything that needed repairs. They took bread, cheese, cold cuts and wine with them and paused for lunch among the vines, chatting about the running of the estate and the local news. 

They had so much history, so many friends in common, but rarely mentioned them unless there was a particular reason to — if Ves wrote asking if Roche had ploughed a furrow in the Toussaint countryside yet, for instance. 

The estate was so vast, Roche easily found endless little tasks to keep himself occupied and he often ranged out to look for its most neglected nooks. 

Beyond the far end of the estate was a disused gamekeeper’s lodge, nearly lost in a thicket of brambles. It had been one of the estate’s dependencies until the lord of the manor had gifted it to the gamekeeper upon his retirement, many generations ago. 

It was here that Roche was working, putting up new fence posts, when he saw Iorveth emerge from the woods, uncharacteristically empty-handed. 

He stood, waiting, for the elf to join him, then frowned, brushing back the hair at Iorveth’s temple. 

“You’re bleeding,” 

“I scared a deer and took a bramble to the face,” Iorveth grumbled. 

Roche barked out a short, startled laugh at the mental image of his elf, usually so elegant and stalking, smacked in the face by a branch like some bumbling fool lost in the woods for the first time. 

He put his mouth to the wound and laved it with his tongue expertly. 

“There. Was it your blind spot?” 

Iorveth nodded, still glaring at the ground like a recalcitrant child. 

“Come on. Let’s go inside and I’ll clean it up for you.” 

They heard a hail and turned to find the knights they’d met on the road had come to visit as they always did when they were in the area, always happy to see the couple who was the talk of the duchy and whom they considered friends. 

And before they knew it, the day of the ball was upon them. 

This time the smiling duchess did not stand on ceremony and even made a few discreet enquiries after Dandelion. Here he was only known as the famous minstrel and infamous womaniser, and Roche could barely credit that it was in this same lifetime that Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove, had worked as his spy. 

“And we insist you both stay for the tourney next month,” the duchess clapped her hands together in excitement, “It is the event of the season! And perhaps we can have a demonstration of the horseback archery the Aen Seidhe are so famous for?” 

It was more precisely something the Vrihedd had been famous for but Iorveth acquiesced graciously. 

Roche had resigned himself to bending to this monarch’s wishes too, on the off chance she was as ready to execute those who displeased her as monarchs in the North were. 

“Have you given any more thought to that knighthood, my lord?” the duchess asked Roche with a smile. 

His instinctive protest died on his lips as he remembered the foibles of monarchs and how contrary they could be if provoked. 

“You will consider it, will you not, my lord?” the duchess pressed, “Our realm has need for more experienced knights.” 

Roche had never thought of himself as a knight but recognised he possessed the know-how they were after. Many of the duchy’s most renowned and experienced knights had perished in the recent troubles, creating vacancies and an urgent sense that their defences had been inadequate, even for peacetime. 

A knight… If he’d still been alive, Foltest would have died laughing to see him knighted. 

But everything was topsy-turvy here. 

In Temeria, Roche had been a popular hero and Iorveth a terrorist rebel. But here, Iorveth was a hero of legend and Roche relegated to a kind of highwayman of romance, little better than a noble savage. 

To his own surprise, Roche found he didn’t care, didn’t even mind. In fact, he rather liked the idea of being considered only as strange or foreign as Iorveth was, because they were, in his own mind, equally strangers to this land. 

Iorveth had no need to act the part. From his missing eye and craggy cheek to the way he held himself, he embodied it 

The court’s ladies were not insensitive to his charms and Roche watched the elf extricate himself. 

“Your next conquest?” 

Iorveth shook his head. 

“Everybody thinks we’re a couple.” 

“That old canard again. Where do people get these ideas? Are you sure? I haven’t noticed it make a blind bit of difference to the biddies who’ve been after me. And you.” 

“They just take it as a challenge.” 

Iorveth was certainly a challenge, Roche reflected. A worthy one. A challenge to catch and an even greater one to keep, and he suspected that few of the coddled courtiers here had what it would take to even pull off the former. 

“I don’t want to be a challenge,” Iorveth added darkly, as if to validate Roche’s thoughts. 

“Are you ready to go?” 

The elf nodded. 

“Come on then. Let’s go.” 

  


With six whole weeks to fill in the lead-up to the tourney, Roche threw himself headlong into helping Geralt with the running of the estate, to keep himself occupied. He went over the accounts with him, interrogated the builders regarding improvements to be carried out, and supervised work throughout the estate. 

Corvo Bianco was prospering. It had taken Geralt a few years to understand the workings of wine-making and what made good wine. Now his witcher senses helped him judge the ripeness and flavour of the grape, and the best day to pick it. He’d developed such a reputation for it that the neighbouring vineyards usually started picking theirs within a day of Geralt starting his. 

“You could expand. Easily,” Roche noted one evening as they dined on jugged hare. 

“Not on my own. There’s a lot of work to do and during picking season there are scores of people to supervise. I’d need a foreman or a partner.” 

When he wasn’t away hunting, Iorveth could be found practicing his archery or in one of his favourite haunts, fletching his own arrows in preparation. 

Roche built the elf some frames on which to stretch the pelts from his catches, and from these Iorveth was fashioning improvements to his saddle and knee pads to give himself better grip on the horse. 

Iorveth suggested beekeeping so they fashioned some hives. Roche and Geralt found a cast iron grill the size of a cartwheel and built it into a smoke room. They enlarged the stone oven they used for bread and pies. The estate produced its own butter and cream and Marlene spent countless happy hours making preserves. 

And Roche the city rat wondered how and why anyone should ever want for food when the land produced such plenty. He began to understand, too, why people were so eager to move on from the past. This was what most people did, they built, they produced. They sold their cured meats and jams at market, and when he went to explore the other stalls, Roche was astonished at being offered — fed — so many samples. Iorveth seemed more at ease and accepted every offer but was terrible at bartering. 

“A reasonable price, man!” Roche barked at a vendor whose hunting knives had piqued Iorveth’s interest, “Do we look like tourists?!” 

The young girl at the next stall was so moved by this show of marital concern that she insisted on gifting them a pot of honey and would not take no for an answer — not to the protestation that they were not, in fact, a couple, nor even to the assurances that they were producing their own honey. 

During the journey south Roche had shed the surplus weight he’d been carrying and after a few weeks’ labour around Corvo Bianco he was trimmer and fitter than he could remember, almost back to his old self. 

He pulled off his shirt, balled it up and wiped the sweat his brow as he walked towards Iorveth who was sitting on the steps of the main house, a brace of hares hanging from his belt. 

“What is it?” 

“You look healthier,” Iorveth remarked, standing. 

“So do you,” Roche answered, putting an arm around Iorveth’s shoulders to guide him into the house, “Come on, let’s wash. Marlene says dinner is in half an hour.” 

Toussaint was warm for a place hemmed in by ever snow-capped mountains and Roche wondered what it was like in winter. 

“Cold,” Geralt answered as they had dinner, holding a leg of duck confit, his feet propped up on a stool, “Colder than the North, in some ways, especially around Temeria and Aedirn. But people are used to it, the houses are solid and warm, the trade caravans bring food and supplies,” he leant over to refill all their glasses, “And there’s plenty of mulled wine.” 

“I suppose people go out less,” Iorveth murmured. 

“Yeah. Lambert, Eskel and the others sometimes winter here now that Kaer Morhen….” Geralt drowned the end of the sentence in a gulp of wine. 

“It’s a time for friends and family,” Iorveth nodded. 

“Exactly.” 

Roche considered his reflection in the mirror and ran a hand through the soft salt-and-pepper bristle on his head. He’d shaved it before leaving but it had grown back in, longer than he’d ever had it. 

“It feels itchy under the chaperon,” he said in answer to the inquisitive look Iorveth gave him as he stepped into their room, a rolled up sheepskin under his arm, “Might shave it off.” 

“It’d be a shame,” Iorveth said, dumping the sheepskin on an armchair before stepping over and running his long fingers through Roche’s hair, “It suits you and it protects that thick skull of yours when you’re not wearing a hat. Chaperon’s just for the tourney anyway. That’s only a few days. Or you could wear one of the hats they use here.” 

Roche decided he’d sooner risk sunstroke than wear a hat with a feather in it but he couldn’t attend an event of that importance bare-headed — especially not since they were to be guests of honour — so it was with his old chaperon on that he attended the games. 

The Toussaint tourney was not about war games at all, it was about pageantry. 

Their ideas of honour and chivalry seemed preposterous — and superfluous — to Roche, and he could not reconcile them with a proper soldierly outlook. But then again, he reminded himself, all their knightly epics spoke only of winning maidenly affections, tournies, and victory against the occasional highwayman. The duchy had not known war or any other kind of conflict for generations until it had been flayed alive by the nameless horror that Geralt had helped them overcome, the very act for which he’d been awarded his Corvo Bianco vineyard. 

The knights they’d befriended visited often and brought their friends with them. Roche sometimes gave them the pointers they were so eager for, the duchess’ offer echoing in the back of his mind. 

He liked the duchess. Anna Henrietta had something of Foltest’s charisma, his human touch, all of his sense of regal entitlement, and none of his darkness. Despite the tragedy that had befallen the duchy, the duchess and her subjects had retained their innocence and youthful optimism. Hearts of the softest gold. 

This optimism was everywhere. It babbled in the brooks and trilled from the trees. It was in the air the Toussaintois breathed, the water they drank, it was baked into the bread they ate. 

“They’re not the Blue Stripes. They’ll never be Blue Stripes,” was what Iorveth’s eye sometimes seemed to say but his mouth never uttered. 

Roche knew it was true. These Toussaintois were so different from Northerners — Nordlings, as they called them — that two lifetimes wouldn’t have been enough to turn them into something resembling Temeria’s elite forces. 

And yet. They wanted to learn. They _ were _ learning. 

“What is it?” Roche asked when he noticed Iorveth’s fidgeting. 

Iorveth was about to demonstrate the horseback archery the duchess had expressed an interest in and Roche knew his elf had been quietly fretting about it for weeks. 

“My left kneepad is slipping.” 

“Stand still, I’ll do it for you.” 

Roche knelt and pulled the kneepad up until the fastening was securely settled behind Iorveth’s knee. 

“Does this feel right?” he asked, looking up. 

“Yes.” 

Sharp gasps fired all around them and Roche wasn’t even back on his two feet before people were clapping him on the back and congratulating them on their engagement. 

“This is madness,” Roche snarled between gritted teeth once they’d managed to extricate themselves, “I’m going to clear this up once and for all!” 

“Better you than me,” came Iorveth’s backhanded encouragement. 

“We are so delighted!” the duchess clapped her hands, and Roche’s words died on his lips, “A good omen for the tourney!” 

She did look delighted and nobody wants to undelight an absolute monarch. That way execution lay. 

“After the tourney,” Roche promised Iorveth that night in bed, “Once the excitement has died down.” 

The first gifts were delivered the very next morning and before Roche found the words to express his horror, Iorveth was already encamped on the bearskin by the hearth, happily ripping them open. 

“I just want to see what they are,” he explained, looking up at Roche. 

And so Roche feverishly kept lists of who had given them what so they could send thank you notes and return everything once they gave up the pretence. 

Every day more things flooded in. Cutlery, plates, cups, endless candlesticks and what amounted to a year’s worth of candles, linens of every description — all the things necessary to set up house. Merchants had put their heads together and agreed on a note promising chairs, tables and other furniture they wanted from their selection, and there had been promises to help build ovens, outhouses, or whatever else they needed. 

Iorveth was delighted in the way elves were by shiny new things and even more by the anticipation and curiosity each new delivery aroused. 

The final day of the tourney came and Roche’s soul left his body in stupefaction when he heard the duchess reference their engagement in her emotive closing speech on healing breaches, the unity of peoples and international cooperation. She gave the engagement her blessing and promised to grant them the plot of land of their choosing as a wedding gift.

“We’d better give it a week or two,” he conceded to Iorveth that night. 

“Geralt asked again if we’ll stay for harvest season. Says it’d be a help having you around.” 

While they were biding their time to inform the duchess of a tactical decision to separate by mutual consent, they’d both fallen into the habit of taking a long walk around the property at the end of the day to make sure the gates were locked and everything as it should be. 

“Mmm,” Roche hummed, his gaze lingering on the tangle of land beyond the fence and the ramshackle cottage on it, “When is it? We’ll have to head back before the snows set in.” 

“I’m not going back.” 

Iorveth stopped short but Roche was carried by the momentum of shock for a few more steps before he slowed and turned around. 

“Sorry?” 

“I’m staying here,” Iorveth said with greater resolution, looking Roche in the eyes, “And I think you should stay too. With me.” 

Roche stared in astonishment. 

“Sorry?” 

“My kin no longer need me, I’m holding them back. I’m a living reminder of what peace cost. I’ve done what I set out to do, I want them to enjoy the peace that has come of all the fighting without reminding them of what it cost. I don’t want them to resent me for it.” 

For a moment, Roche considered returning to a North without Iorveth in it, a North will little that he recognized left in it, and he felt the abysmal void of his life open up beneath him. 

The void of his life and Iorveth’s. Iorveth, with his near-immortal blood, faced eternity as a living ghost. 

“Don’t you see?” Iorveth questioned the silence, “They never meant for us to go back. There’s no place for me — for us — in the North. We’re not needed there. We should never have survived the war.” 

The truth of this knocked the breath out of Roche and it took him a moment to recover. 

“How long have you known?” 

Iorveth looked away a moment then met his gaze again, open and honest. 

“Since the beginning. Because Ciaran was the one to ask.” 

Roche wondered why he hadn’t seen it. Geralt’s request had seemed frivolous enough back in Vizima but once they’d arrived Roche had seen just how empty it had really been. 

No, perhaps he had known without wanting to admit it. Perhaps that was why he’d so resisted the whole idea. He’d only pretended to see nothing more in it than an old friend’s awkward way of forcing a visit, and he’d only succeeded in fooling himself. 

“We don’t have to actually get married, of course,” Iorveth mumbled into the awkward silence. 

Roche stared at Iorveth, whose cheeks had colour again and whose spring-green eye was once again full of life, and he realised he’d still been living in the past because he hadn’t been able to think about the future. 

But he could see the future now. 

They would spend this winter with Geralt, eating his preserves and drinking mulled wine while he helped them plan the repairs and changes they would make to the gamekeeper’s cottage and its patch of land come spring. They could live on nothing at all. Iorveth could still send his pension to his fellow Aen Seidhe, they’d have enough left of Roche’s own to each year make improvements to their home. He’d learn to fish and keep helping Geralt at Corvo Bianco, Iorveth would continue to hunt and forage. They’d have a small vegetable patch and maybe a herb garden, Marlene would teach them to make their own bread and preserves. At the end of each day he’d have a small glass of bad ale on the porch while he waited for Iorveth to come back and curl up in his arms, and then they’d have good wine with their dinner. 

He reached out to cup Iorveth’s cheek and stroked it with his thumb, curling his fingers around Iorveth’s nape then drawing him close enough to press a long, unhurried kiss against his temple. 

“Not if you don’t want to. I’ll settle for a very long engagement.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


End file.
